


Janus Queen

by optimustaud



Series: The Quest [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Child Abuse, Escapism, Gen, Gore, Mind Palace, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 19:58:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5756314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/optimustaud/pseuds/optimustaud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A puppet is carved into shape by his creators hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Janus Queen

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to Stone Towers. The beginning of the journey. 
> 
> Reference and symbolism heavy. If you've read the others in the series you know exactly what to expect. Leave me any questions in the comment section.

The puppet begins life as a block of cypress wood.  He waits not knowing how long it has been since he had been cut from the tree. The first thing that tells him that he exists is the scrape of an adze against the grain of his being.

 

He gains understanding when his creator carves his head.  Eyes, ears, and nose take shape beneath the creators steady hands.  He becomes aware of sight, touch and scent as the features of his face are whittled into being.

 

A woman bends over him, brushing stray spirals of cypress shavings from his newly formed face.  On the right side of her skull is the face of young girl.  Its features would be beautiful if not for the sour frown and angry, puckered eyes.  On the left side of her skull is the face of a careworn old woman.  Its face looks exhausted and its eyes are filled with love and compassion.  

 

With his face complete the puppet is able to watch and listen as the two faced woman carves his torso out of the block of wood.  It hurts and he doesn’t like it, but his maker has not completed his mouth.  

 

When she is finished with his body she makes him arms and legs from the pieces of wood left over from the original cutting.  She pins him into a new shape and sands down his rough edges and dresses him in silk and lace.  She winds string through his joints and carefully wraps the ends around her waist.  Finally she carves him a mouth.

 

“God?” he asks.

 

“Mother,” she corrects, her two mouths speaking with one voice.  She turns her old weatherbeaten face towards him and smiles.  She rests her left hand against his cheek.  It is warm and he presses closer to her as she bends down to kiss his forehead.

 

“Mother,” he repeats solemnly. He waits a moment and then asks “Do I have a name?”

 

As she lifts her left hand away her right hand rises.  She slaps him hard enough to leave a crack across his face.  She throws him across the room and cracks his back when his body hits the wall of their house.  She steps on his cracked chest and turns her right face towards him. He quivers at the anger he sees on her features.  “After everything I have done for you, you should be grateful.  What do you need a name for?”  

 

She picks him up and locks him in an old clothes chest.  He doesn’t know how long she leaves him in the small dark space and he doesn’t understand what he has done to make her angry.  He thinks that if he can figure out what he did wrong maybe he can get her left face to turn his way again.

 

The puppet learns that he lives in an old house.  It has a kitchen, a bedroom, and not much else.  Mother walks him over dirt floors and settles him on half rotted furniture when she has to put him down.  She likes to keep him close when she is at home.  When she is away, which is more often than not, she keeps him locked in the clothes chest.  “It is only because I love you so much.  You are precious to me.  I want to keep you safe,” she tells him with both mouths.  

 

He believes her and thinks that he must be blessed to have such a kind and caring Mother.  He loves her desperately and with all of his heart.  He fears her just as much as he loves her.  He wishes he could fix that part of himself that makes her so angry that she has to hurt him.  He wants to tell her that he is grateful and that he will never leave her even if he is a little afraid of her.

 

Mother has a pet hyena.  It stays in the kitchen and guards the front door to the house.  It prowls around Mother’s feet while she cooks and steals the meat off of their plates before it can be eaten.   It snaps desperately at any small scrap of food that might be dropped on the floor.   Mother  loves the creature despite its sharp teeth and voracious appetite.  The puppet  is afraid of it.  After all, it's teeth are very sharp and his wooden body is very soft.  

  
  


One day while he is waiting in his chest for Mother the lid cracks open and a red furred fox noses it way inside. They stare at each other for a moment.

 

“Why are you in a chest?” the fox asks.

 

“I couldn’t get out.”

 

“All you had to do was push the lid open,”  the fox laughs.  

 

“I am a puppet.  I cannot move by myself.”

 

The fox cocks its head to the side.  “My name is Remembrance.  What’s yours?”

 

“I don’t have one.  Mother never gave me one.”

 

The fox leans in close,  “You should pick your own.  Come with me and I will help you find a name.”

 

“All right,” he says.  

 

The fox carries him on its back to a castle by the sea.  He climbs a tall staircase to reach a room filled with books.  “This is my library.  Maybe we can find your name in here,” the fox says.  “I know these books very well and they are full of names.”

 

The puppet searches through the books paying special attention to the pages marked with paw prints.  He reads through the stories and tries out  the names that he thinks might be his, but none of them seem to fit right.  

 

He spreads his favorite books out on the floor and shows the fox.  “I thought my name might be in one of these, but I couldn’t find it.”

 

The fox looks at him sadly and licks his face.  “Then I will give you a name.  Your name is Tragedy.”  He doesn’t know if he likes that name, but it is better than being nameless.

 

The fox takes him back home and puts him back in the puppet box before Mother realizes he is missing.  This time the box isn’t as frightening.  He has the stories in the books floating in his mind.  They comfort him when he sits in the dark by himself.  

 

Each day when Mother leaves Remembrance returns and takes him to the castle so he can read.  Little by little he begins to change.  He doesn’t think that Mother notices.  He wakes one morning to a persistent thumping sound and learns that he has grown a heart.  He wakes the next morning and marvels as he feels his lungs expand and contract as he breathes.  Slowly, he learns to stand and walk on his own.  His rough wooden shell softens into flesh and bone.

 

Mother still switches between one face and the other, but he finds it is easier to bear now that he has the fox and his books.  Time passes and he grows.  An orange cat slips through the crack in his puppet box one night and curls up with him to sleep.  It stays for three days before he names it Loyalty.  The cat never comes with him o to the castle, but it is always in his box waiting for him when he comes home.  

 

One day he hears a great clattering coming from the kitchen.  He runs to see what has happened.  He finds his mother sitting at the counter with a cleaver.  She cuts off her left leg and feeds it to the hyena at her feet.  She smiles at him with her careworn face when she sees him and says, “It’s better to be hurt than to hurt others.  If I don’t feed this poor creature, then who will?”

 

Tragedy ties her a tourniquet and brings her a crutch made of yew.  He watches as the hyena gnaws on her leg bone and grins at him.  Each morning Tragedy wakes to the sound of the cleaver and the hyena eating Mother’s flesh.  He knows that Mother cannot continue to feed the hyena if she wants to live.  He is too afraid of Mother and the hyena to say anything so he stays silent.   

 

One morning he wakes to silence.  He goes into the kitchen and finds Mother’s head on the floor.  The hyena is bloated with her meat and chewing on a spare rib bone.  The creature grins at him and he knows that this beast will not let him leave.  He knows that if he stays this creature will eat him as well.

 

He picks up Mother’s head from the floor.  He wraps it in a towel and hides it in his puppet box with Loyalty.  He waits until Remembrance returns.

 

“Help me escape.  I am scared that the Hyena will eat me,” he begs and he tells the fox everything.

 

The creature listens with cocked ears before disappearing out of the window.  Remembrance comes back with white carnations in its teeth.  “Mix these in a bowl of milk and feed it to the hyena.  When it falls asleep we can escape to my castle.”

 

Tragedy waits until the hyena is not in sight.  He goes into the kitchen, grinds the flowers to a paste and mixes it with milk.  He leaves the dish out on the floor and goes back to his box before the hyena can return.  He listens with his ear pressed to the kitchen door until he hears the creature sloppily lapping up the milk.  When the beast starts to snore he takes Loyalty in one arm and Mother’s head in the other, he follows Remembrance back to the castle.

 

They pull the drawbridge up behind them and they don’t look back.

 

Tragedy takes Mother’s head up to the throne room.  He tries to fix her.  He builds her a body from the wood of a cherry  tree.  He places her head on the body he has prepared for her and turns her careworn face towards him. He covers the right side of her face with a veil so that he doesn’t have to look at it.   He sits at her feet and waits for her to speak.


End file.
